In an image-forming apparatus such as a printer, electronic photocopier, and facsimile apparatus, a conductive member such as a conductive roll, conductive blade, and conductive belt has been used for the mechanism where semiconductivity is required.
Such a conductive member, depending on their application, are being asked to provide a desired range of electroconductivity (electrical resistance value and variation in same, environmental dependency, and voltage dependency), various performances such as non-contaminating ability, low hardness, and dimensional stability.
As the rubber forming part of such a conductive member, a polyether rubber and the like which have semi-electrical conductivity in the rubber itself have been used. However, in recent years, in the image-fainting apparatus, higher speed has been demanded. For the conductive member, particularly the conductive roll, further lower electrical resistance has been desired.
Further, there has been conventionally a problem that, under application of voltage to a conductive member in which a polyether rubber and the like are used, upon continuous use, the conductive member deteriorated due to electric current so that electrical resistance value of the conductive member increases and quality of an image is impaired accordingly when used for the application of an image-forming device. For solving this problem, for example, Patent Document 1 discloses the art of introducing, into a polyether rubber, 0.1 mol % to less than 30 mol % of units of a monomer having onium ion introduced using a nitrogen atom-containing aromatic heterocyclic compound such as 1-methylimidazole as onium-forming agents.
However, when reacting a polyether rubber with the nitrogen atom-containing aromatic heterocyclic compound such as 1-methylimidazole react (onium-forming reaction) by the batch type method, there is the problem of poor productivity.